The Forest, by Ben Greenfield - Chapter 16: "The Monster"

Terran narrowed his eyes, trying to focus on the colossal shadow weaving through the currents. The shape would disappear completely under the boat, then snake back up and re emerge towards the front, then suddenly move towards the back. The surface of the water sunk slightly lower around each area of movement, as if sucked downwards by an invisible force. Terran bit his lower lip, clenched and unclenched his fists, and glanced nervously back towards the mess hall where he could still hear laughing and singing. He looked back down into the water. The shadow was gone. Then something struck the devil with a ferocity that shook and shuttered the entire forecastle. A crack louder than a rifle reverberated through the night air. Terran's knuckles whitened around the railing of the deck as he collapsed to his knees. Behind him, he heard shrieking and shouting as seafarers came sprinting clumsily out from the mess hall, stumbling over one another on the steep, narrow wooden stairs. The sea violently ebbed on one side of the devil and the ship swayed unexpectedly to the left. Terran slid to the port side of the forecastle, slamming his shoulders into the railing. The ship swerved back to the right and he slid to the starboard side of the forecastle, wincing as a sharp splinter dug into his forearm, where he struck the opposite railing above. The loud cracking of fractured wood coming from somewhere below the front of the ship and the din of the howling confused seafarers. He heard Tink shouting his name. Up here. I'm up here. He called down to Tink, then began crawling on his belly towards the ladder leading down from the forecastle. He couldn't stand. The entire bow of the ship was trembling like an earthquake. He struggled to keep from slamming into the railings again and tried to balance his body by digging his fingernails into wet wood. From above him he heard a man shriek, then scream, and then a shrieking, screaming human body came crashing from the sky and landed on the deck almost directly beside him. He gasped as he slid on his bottom away from the limp, broken figure. Both legs of the body were almost completely ripped away at the hips and a dark black fluid was oozing from the split torso. Terran felt his face suddenly become wet with the spray of warm, sticky blood. He turned, stomach wrenching and cramping, and he vomited across the deck of the forecastle. There was another loud cracking sound and the ship swayed violently towards the stern. Terran slid to the back of the forecastle now slamming into this railing, tried to steady himself, and suddenly, as his head pressed up against the railing, had a clear view of the entire ship. Grood stood on the main deck near the exit of the mess hall, his feet spread wide and one hand clutching tightly to a clump of netting that had ripped off the mainmast. He was holding a club in the other hand and shouting ferociously over the crashing of the waves and spraying of water. Terran couldn't make out what he was saying. Meanwhile, Jack, the steersman, a dagger in his teeth, was trying to clamber up a ladder on the stern to man the helm of the ship at the rear mast, but kept slipping and falling back towards the deck. Jolly, the first mate, was standing very near to Grude. He was clutching an entire handful of long javelins, handing them to seafarers as they hurried past him towards the opposite side of the ship. Terran's eyes followed the seafarers as they sprinted, slid and stumbled starboard across the deck. Two of them hoisted their javelins aloft and let fly. Terran watched the spears fly off into the darkness over the deck of the ship. And then he saw their target. The entire sea's depth was plummeting around a dark black section on the starboard side of the ship. It looked as though hundreds of feet of water had been sucked inwards by a monstrous vacuum. The waves around this entire swirling area of water were tossing and swelling as though a fierce underwater storm had struck the edges of the ship. Javelin after javelin disappeared into this gaping hole, swallowed up by a giant underwater pit. Terran sucked in his breath as he watched a giant, slimy black mass break through the raging whirlpool, Javelins projecting from it like a pin cushion. Massive, writhing tentacles stretched out from the center of this black mass, grasping desperately for the side of the devil. Terran ducked low to the deck of the forecastle as he counted four, then six, then eight of these monstrously long tentacles, each wrapped in wet, shimmering scales and lined with power. Powerful suckers. Protruding from each sucker were row after row of razor sharp incisors that opened and closed as the tentacles swung through the air like wild, enraged serpents. As the black mass continued to slowly rise from the water, Terran heard a whooshing sound and instinctively flattened his entire body to the deck as a tentacle swung over his head and smashed into the foremast, sending wet splinters flying like fireworks into the air. Then a tentacle flung itself away from the foremast and whipped straight towards Grood.

Grood. Terran screamed at the captain, and at the same time Grood ducked. Jolly, still standing behind the captain, looked up too late, dropped his handful of javelins and caught the full force of the tentacle in his chest. He let out a horrifying wail as it ripped through his ribcage and sent bloody, shattered fragments of his spine exploding about the deck. Another tentacle slithered up the side of the deck, grabbed two seafarers at the same time and in a split second hoisted them as high as the mainmast, then tossed them like rag dolls back down to the deck where they landed bloody and lifeless.

A piercing horrible scream filled the air. It was coming straight from the black hole in the water. A giant octopus like head with enormous gleaming black eyes was emerging. A hideously shaped mouth below these two eyes was repeatedly opening and snapping shut, revealing row after row of sharp crooked teet, each tooth easily the size of an entire man. Each time the mouth opened, another deafening scream filled the air. It was the call of a sea monster and it sent ripples of terror through Terran's head each time it sounded. As the tentacles continued to fly wildly about, raining down scales and salty seawater over the deck, A gargantuan tongue suddenly emerged from the sea monster's mouth. A tongue as thick as the main mast of the entire ship. The tongue shot like a cannon through the hole, piercing a gaping hole and sending splintered planks of wood sailing into the air. Another tentacle soared over the foremast and past Terran's flattened body, again speeding towards Grood. This time Terran shouted, too late. The tentacle snatched Grood up and whipped him straight into the night sky like a giant throwing a pebble. Grood's shrieks faded into the distance as he flew out of sight, hundreds of feet into the air and out into the darkness of the sea. Terran struggled to his feet and watched in horror as another tentacle grabbed Jack, who was still struggling up to the helm. It hoisted the unlucky stairsman over the deck and straight towards the gaping jaws of the octopus like head, stuffing him into the hideous toothed opening as he let out a blood curdling scream. This same tentacle went writhing back into the air and catapulted towards the main mast, where it wrapped itself around the mast once, twice, then three times. The sea monster let out another wailing scream as it began to pull on the main mast, sharply pitching the entire ship starboard towards the ocean. Terran slipped again. His entire body slammed to the deck as he slid towards the railing. While the ship continued to tilt, the sea monster was capsizing them. Princess Iria woke with a start. It had been nearly six days. Six frustrating days that she roused just hours after falling asleep, drenched in warm sweat and smothered by the plush duvet under which she and her sister lay.

She looked towards the enormous window that framed the forested Aurora mountain range of eastern Gwald. It was hard to tell how close it was to morning, especially under the first full light of the great sister moons Alazara and Zephyra, but her heavy eyes hinted that it was not close enough to rise. The window was frosted. It was freezing outside, yet so feverishly warm here in bed. She rolled over and let her outstretched arm flop onto her sister's neck. Enya, are you awake? The same as the past six nights. You asked, Sister. I am now. Aria turned back over. Inside she was growing weary of waking up exhausted and being unable to focus, unable to read, unable to work on her loom, unable to shoot her bow, unable to harvest mushrooms. Yet every night this week the night sweats had returned, along with strange lucid dreams. Dreams of being buried in earth, dreams of enormous hairy creatures, dreams of helplessly falling from the sky. She didn't believe Enya. She knew Enya was dreaming too, but her sister was more distant, more proud, more tight lipped. She wouldn't have admitted it even if she was having trouble sleeping too, even if she too had been assaulted by disquieting visions in the night. Aria sighed again. She clenched and unclenched her 10 year old fists. She tried to relax, she tried to breathe as she had on the six previous nights she finally sat up. Father had warned her of the perils of fatiguing her powers, but now it was the only way to sleep. She quietly waved her hands back and forth and felt a chill and a tiredness settle over her body as the air gently began to swirl around her. Her head collapsed back into the soft pillow and she fell asleep. Asleep into a fitful vision of snapping razor sharp teeth chasing her across a freezing snowscape. Beside her, Enya felt goosebumps settle across her body as her sister's cold back brushed against her. She set her jaw, waved her own hands, and the air in the room suddenly grew quite warm. She too gave a slight shiver, a tired murmur, and fell into her own dream, a dream of drowning under pillars and pillars of water.

At this point, as the tentacle continued to tip the devil, the ship was tilted nearly halfway into the ocean and Terran had no choice but to hold the railing with a white knuckled death grip, or to slide off the forecastle and into the ocean where the snapping jaws of the Horrid sea monster waited. Rather than splitting the main mast cleanly in half, the lone tentacle progressed to slowly and intelligently bend the main mast into a crescent shape, draggin the entire ship slowly onto its side and towards the waiting head of the sea monster. This was worse than the flying machine crash. Worse than the Catawan snare and the fire pit roasting. Worse than the quicksand. Terran groaned as his fingers burned and the blood began to drain from his grip. There was nothing that could save him or the remaining seafarers or the ship now. Only hours earlier they'd been pulled from the ocean and now they were returning to the ocean in a very terrible and unpleasant manner. Hippo locking his four fingers around his thumb in a desperate attempt to cling to the railing. Just a few seconds more. Terran strained his neck to look towards this loud cry. He knew it to be Tink's voice. And now he could finally see the elf. A flash of Tink's black dagger glimmered under the double moons as the inventor leapt explosively from somewhere under the forecastle and towards the main mast. With two long strides and a mighty leap, Tink dove ferociously into the tentacle wrapped around the main mast, wrapping his own legs around it and bearing his blade into the black flesh while giving another thunderous shout. He hacked at the tentacle once, twice, then drew his blade deep across it and directly into one of the suckers. The sea monster let out a deafening scream, the loudest yet, and its entire head twisted and shook in rage. Three more tentacles came hurtling from the sea towards the mainmast. Two swung towards Tink but missed, instead crashing into the master, which splintered and crashed from the collision. The third tentacle wrapped around the back of the mast, twisted around the front, grabbed Tink and pinned him against it like a monstrous boa constrictor squeezing a rat. Terran felt his grip slowly weakening and slipping as he watched this horrific scene. Tink's face turned white and his eyes bulged. The arm holding his dagger let go and fell limp to his side. The tentacle continued to squeeze as Tink's legs and feet writhed, then began to tremble and shake. His mouth moved, but there was no sound. He looked up towards Terran and their eyes met. His pupils were wide and full of fear. His lips were blue. He was suffocating and being painfully crushed against the mast all at the same time. Then Terran saw a slight movement near the stern at the entrance of the mess hall. A small, familiar shape stood, feet planted wide. It was River. River's arms were held high in the air. His hands swung right, then left. His mouth was set in a grim scowl. His blue pupils were nearly doubled in size over the violent screams of the dying seafarers, the splintering of the mainmast, the churning of the sea monster and the smashing of the waves. Terran heard a quiet high pitched voice break bravely through the chaos. Time for you to die. Like the jagged cutting edge of a saw, a powerful stream of water came speeding out from the port side of the devil and cut straight into the tentacle wrapped around Tink, completely severing the sea monster's flesh, slicing the the entire tentacle in half and spraying black fluid like a fire hose onto the deck. Tink tumbled to the deck, gasping for breath and grasping his throat. The sea monster screamed ferociously. Rivers arms collapsed to his side and his chin fell to his chest. His ribcage rose as he took a deep breath. Then his arms flew back into the air again and he twirled towards the starboard side of the deck where the giant head of the sea monster had paused its sinister rise from the ocean. One enormous pupil focused on the severed tentacle that now flopped uselessly against the deck. And the other pupil focused on Rivers tiny body standing courageously. Terran saw a glimmer of fear and confusion in the eye of the monster.

As he looked into one of its gleaming evil pupils. Another jet stream of water came blasting from directly beneath the ship and the entire eye suddenly exploded in a mess of dark black fluid. River spun and swung his arms again. A column of water slammed into the tentacle wrapped around the mainmast and cut this tentacle cleanly in half. The sea monster let out another terrifying scream. But this one was different. It was a hurt, confused screeching sound. The octopus like head began to sink back into the water, tentacles flying wildly about the ship as the water seemed to suck the entire sea monster's body back into the the Charbetian sea from which it has risen. Then with a horrible hissing sound Terran would never forget, the head of the sea monster slipped beneath the surface of the sea. River collapsed to his knees. He looked up. His eyes met Terran's. They looked lifeless. His lips were blue, his face was ghostly white. His torso buckled and he slumped to the deck.